Hometown Fans Travel To Cheer On Panthers' Maclean

June 11, 1996|By RACHEL ALEXANDER Staff Writer

MIAMI - — It was fitting, perhaps, that four of the people who know Doug Mac-Lean best were four of the last fans left standing in the Miami Arena after the Panthers' 1-0 triple-overtime Stanley Cup loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

They were four men who had been friends of MacLean's since childhood, and they had traveled more than nine hours by plane from MacLean's hometown of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, to be here. It had been a long trip, but the 10 minutes they spent watching the Avalanche parade the Stanley Cup around the ice seemed much longer.

Finally, as they walked past the celebrating blur of the Avalanche's blue and white toward their old friend, they felt everything the Panthers' fans felt, only deeper.

It was a three-day period that went from the high of seeing MacLean, their Douggie MacLean, coaching in the Stanley Cup Finals to the low of this last, hard-fought loss. But even in defeat, they saw a man who had won much more than any of them imagined back in Summerside as 10-year-olds.

"Despite being down 3-0 and in three overtimes, they showed the work ethic and pride the Panthers have established over the last three seasons," George Matthews said. "This doesn't tarnish their season at all. They didn't quit when a lot of teams would have."

And it doesn't tarnish MacLean's reputation in his hometown, which has adopted the Panthers with such vigor this post-season that Summerside could be a pocket of Broward County.

Last summer, shortly after MacLean was named head coach, the town declared a "Doug MacLean Day," and gave him a public reception. They've already begun planning for another such celebration for this summer, and this time there will also be a parade.

Everyone in Summerside still wants a piece of MacLean, and it's not just because of his NHL accomplishments.

"There's a 6or 7-year-old boy in Summerside who was run over by a drive-on lawnmower," Matthews said. "Doug called him [Monday) in the hospital, and he also tried to call a cancer patient who turned out to be too weak to come to the phone. That's the kind of guy Doug MacLean is."